Travel

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

When I first heard about L'Assiette, I wondered if the restaurant will succeed at serving only one thing. Yes, L'Assiette only has one item on the menu: steak frites. When you sit down, the only menu they give you is the wine list. They ask you what temperature you'd like your steak to be and jot it down on the paper table cover.

It isn't just the steak frites, though, but the $25 meal comes with a choice of either salad or an aromatic sorrel soup that I loved.

Then comes the steak frites: slices of very tender steak, hot fries, with their homemade secret-recipe sauce.

The steak is cooked sous vide to the temperature you ordered, then seared lightly. The fries were wonderful, with a nice crispy outer layer and just the right amount of seasoning. While I personally like a bit more char to my steak, they were certainly tender. The chef and co-owner, Jacques Fiorentino, wanted to recreate his favorite restaurant of his childhood in Paris, which is also a steak frites restaurant. He decided he will not try to replicate their special sauce, but instead came up with his own secret recipe.

The steak frites are served in two portions. What you see above is the first portion, which is already quite a lot of food, so the $25 meal is quite a deal! After you are finished with the first portion, they bring fresh steak and fries. They do this because, as Jacques said to me, "there's nothing better than hot fries and nothing worse than cold fries". I thought this was a really nice touch!

If you want to succeed serving just one dish, it better be a very good one, and indeed the steak frites here are quite good! The restaurant is still new and the chef is on a mission to create the best steak frites in town and he's eager to receive feedback and suggestions. I certainly hope Los Angeles will give this restaurant a chance.

There are only two other items on the chalkboard menu: dessert and cheese, for an extra charge. You can create a cheese plate for $4/oz. For dessert, there are profiteroles ($7) drizzled with chocolate sauce, which finishes of the French meal nicely. (UPDATE: They now offer a variety of desserts including macarons)